Question about sand bath

[emilyshouts]

Hi there - this is my first post on the board! I've just adopted 3 degus, it was a spur of the moment decision, they would've been PTS if not rehomed & I'd kept rats & hamsters before so figured it couldn't be that different!

It's very different! Had no idea degu were so interesting (though I think I still prefer rats! They've got a sweet cage set up now, all wire flooring covered to avoid bumble foot, children told not to feed them fruit, lots of hay to burrow in - the only thing I was wondering about was their sand bath. They've had one this morning, but if I leave it in there they have less room to run around. What's better, only having a sand bath once a day for a few hours or more room to run around?

Sorry for the lengthy post! Hope I haven't unintentionally broken any forum rules.

[bijett]

Hellp and welcome to the forum,

I asked the same question when I first joined.lol
I leave the sand bath in there personally and they can go in when they want.

[Lrak]

Hi, welcome to the forum, they are wonderful and interesting.
I tend to leave it in now but when I first got my girls they had a smaller cage so I put it in for an hour or so a day for them. If you do keep it in just pick out the mess, I normally do it daily. Just give it a good shake and it should all come to the top.

[moletteuk]

Hi & welcome Well done for giving the goos a home

I think if the sandbath makes a significant difference to the space they have available, then you might need to think about extending the cage space. Here's our cage size guide deguworld.proboards.com/thread/9396/forums-cage-size-recommendations

Short term it depends how much they love the sandbath, could you get a smaller one? They don't need the sandbath all the time, but they do need space, so I would probably vote for the space.

No need to worry too much about forum rules, nobody else does lol! Feel free to take a look around and ask any questions

[emilyshouts]

Because I thought degus were pretty much like rats, I put them in my old rat cage, which is an adapted tall bird cage. After reading up (the very link you just posted, actually!) I realised that they're not very good climbers, so I've put some platforms & ramps in so they've got more room to run around. They've got a huge wooden wheel, which two can run in at once (which is hilarious!) & plenty of room to hide from prying eyes!

I'm off work at the moment, so I think for now I'll keep just putting the sand bath in for a few hours in the morning. It also keeps it as a novelty for the time being!

Thanks for all your replies - I can see I'm gonna be spending a lot of time on here! I had no idea how different degus were compared to other rodents I've kept in the past!

[moletteuk]

Yeah, they sure are different, I used to keep dwarf hamsters.

Some people have had success in turning a tall cage on its side and adding an extra full level so you have two big surfaces, it can work if you have the room space.

Have fun finding your feet, if you can tune into them, they will give signs of what they want.

[emilyshouts]

Well I've solved the sand bath conundrum! Because the cage is a modified bird cage, I had the metal seed tray which fixes onto the side. I've filled that with sand so they have that all the time, then they get a couple of hours with the big one too. The bonus of this is that when I go back to work, if I don't have time to do their big bath in the morning, they still have access to the little one during the day.

I may be getting into this quite a lot!

[emilyshouts]

Also thank you all for not shouting at me for plunging headlong into adopting my goos! I guess it was a pretty foolish thing to do, but I couldn't bear to think of them being PTS for want of a good home!